Phototherapy has long been used to treat various medical conditions including, for example, jaundice in newborn infants. Jaundice is caused by a build up of bilirubin in the blood of infants. Exposing the infant's skin to certain types of light will reduce the bilirubin to a safe level.
Phototherapy has also long been used to help treat various other medical conditions, with varying degrees of success. Heretofore a major drawback in using previous phototherapy devices was their inability effectively to control the amount, type and/or extent of light energy to different areas of the body of an individual, particularly for prolonged periods of time, with minimal inconvenience to the individual.